I should probably preface this post by placing the blame for its inspiration squarely on the shoulders of one current and one former member of the White House Press Corps. The current Press Corps member is none other than CBS News’ Mark Knoller. He has a very interesting Twitter feed (@markknoller) and tweets out some interesting details about White House life not found anywhere else. If President Obama sneaks out to Five Guys for a bacon double-cheeseburger, Mark will know what he topped it with. He’ll also keep you posted on the guest list for most any state dinner. I suspect Mark to be a closet “foodie” but again I digress.

The second (and former) White House Press Corps member is CNN’s latest addition to its fledgling political staff and former ABC Newsman Jake Tapper. Jake’s contribution to this post is what I believe to be the single best book written about the Afghanistan war entitled The Outpost.

This is not a book to be read, but rather an intensely detailed experience to be endured. It does not have a happy ending and the story he relates about this American outpost beats the reader about the head and shoulders.

Tapper relates the story of several injured soldiers whose wounds required them to be medically evacuated to field hospitals. Often these soldiers were then flown to Lanstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany where the heroic medical staff works around the clock trying to save the lives of these American heroes. Many lives are saved at this facility. Far too many are not as fortunate.

I’m sure I’ve confused you by now as to the point of this post. Rest assured, Dear Reader, I do have a point.

In the past six months President Obama has boarded Air Force One for trips overseas which offered him the opportunity of refueling the Boeing 747 at Germany’s Ramstein Air Force Base. On November 12, 2012, Mark Knoller reported:

Air Force One done refueling at Ramstein and now on final 10hr leg of trip to Thailand. Pres Obama stayed on the plane. (Emphasis added)

After 11hr 36min flight, Pres Obama back from his Mideast trip. Flight home from Amman was 5,935 miles. Refueling stop in Germany bypassed. (Emphasis added)

Here’s my point. The President of the United States is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States. In my humble opinion, this job is far and away the most important role of that office. It brings with it a responsibility unique to the relationship between a commander and his (or her) troops. Ramstein Air Force Base is but five kilometers from the Lanstuhl Regional Medical Center. The very least the Commander in Chief could do would be to take time out from his golf game, state dinner, fundraiser, or campaign event schedule and pay a visit to those who have given so much in the service of their nation.

He is, after all, the President of the United States. Air Force One goes where he says, stops where he says, and takes off when he says. It’s not like the plane is going to leave without him.

Perhaps I’m being small and petty. If I am, blame Tapper, Knoller, and Twitter.

Well, Dear Reader, this coming Thursday marks the end of the world. Forget the phony Mayan Apocalypse. Sequestration is coming. Yeah, that’s a big word and nobody seems to actually know what it means. I’d say its unprecedented when truthfully it’s really inconceivable.

The One refers to the “sequestration” cuts as a “meat cleaver” approach to trimming the budget. While this may be true, let’s also remember that this whole meat cleaver idea was hatched in The One’s brainpan. It was his dizzying intellect that came up with this idea. Had he not put his pen to paper on the bill that became law with his signature, his government would not be in this situation.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this country has operated without an annual budget for the entire administration of Barack Obama. His government has run TRILLION dollar deficits every single day of its existence and projects to run those same deficits for as far as futurists care to predict. Here’s the biggest joke: even with the “sequestration” meat cleaver, the Federal Government will spend more money this year than it did last year. Don’t take my word for it, the big brained people over at George Mason University have run the numbers.

But, never mind the facts and figures. At midnight on Thursday the world will stop spinning on its axis and everything and everyone will be hurled into space. Mayan Apocalypse? Hell, ancient predictions of fire and brimstone ain’t got nothin’ on big bad Sequestration. Here’s a preview of The One’s upcoming press conference:

The response is a chance for Rubio to assert his brand on a national stage, a chance to show that he’s ready for prime-time – or is that primary time?

The last time a young, star-in-the-making Republican gave the opposition response to Obama’s SOTU after election was in 2009, when Louisiana Bobby Jindal gave a performance that set back his reputation by years.

Dusty Harry has taken it upon himself to carry 55 gallon drums of water for the current democratic party attack meme that Mitt Romney is hiding something deep within the dark recesses of his past tax returns. Rather than accept the fact that Mitt made more money before breakfast today than Dusty Harry will make in a lifetime, Dusty Harry has decided to start the rumor that Mitt is hiding the secret that he in fact paid no taxes at all over the past decade.

And the source for Dusty Harry’s accusation? Well, on Tuesday Dusty Harry cited a “Bain Capital Investor” who allegedly called Dusty Harry and told him Mitt “didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years”. Today Dusty Harry went on the floor of the US Senate and doubled down. Said Harry:

The word’s out that he hasn’t paid any taxes for 10 years. Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t. (Emphasis Added)

I do not care what the issue is, the attitude and actions of legislating by executive order rather than by the process established by the Constitution is wrong. The President of the United States dictating laws from his desk are the actions of just that–a dictator.

When the curtain went up on Obama Theatre’s latest presentation, staged at a town hall meeting sponsored by LinkedIn.com, the performance was the same as it has always been. A theatre critic would describe Obama’s act as tired, tedious, and repetitive. The President delivered the same stale routines and predictable themes upon which he’s long relied. There was nothing new, nothing creative. His message was inescapably vacant and laughably sophomoric.

Let me ask you something. How well would a construction worker do his job if he was handed a scalpel for his daily responsibilities? Obviously not very well. This morning I was watching the construction going on across the street from my Foggy Bottom apartment and it reminded me of all the times I have heard we need to use a scalpel instead of a wrecking ball when it comes to our budget.Read more

For the record, reports of my demise have been slightly exaggerated. I have been up till recently suffering from a combined attack of employment, academia, and travel which has left me time sufficient only to pound the steering wheel or throw pillows at the television screen when I have been assaulted by The One’s endless speechifying. I’m beginning to think presidential addresses should come with a warning screen prior to the actual event.

Yesterday was Monday and thus the scene of yet another TelePrompTer show at the White House Rose Garden. Has anybody checked to see whether TOTUS now has a permanent pole mounted amongst the roses? I’m just curious.

But I digress. Where was I? Oh, yes. Roses.

There is a well used section of the liberal playbook entitled “Class Warfare”. This involves convincing the public that all of their problems can be traced back to some rotund Wall Street hedge fund manager who owns six houses, three stretch HUMMERS, and a fleet of private jets. This demographic, dear reader, doesn’t pay its “fair share” of taxes and that’s why the American economy is stuck clinging to the edges of the drain.Read more

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you have probably heard about the Solyndra scandal. It’s being touted as Obama’s first scandal, well at least the first one that has known ties to the White House. How will this impact 2012? Or will it just blow over by then?

Seriously folks, more often than any other pundit, Peggy Noonan pitches a tent in my head, steals my ideas and writes brilliant columns. Her latest is exactly what I would have said, only more betterer.

President Obama made the correct decision in sending Navy SEALs into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden. But was it the “gutsy call” the media, and the administration itself, has led us to believe? Logically and politically the President had no alternative. Read more

This is too much. Just hours after the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed in a firefight with U.S. commandos, John Brennan, the White House counter-terrorism advisor, hailed President Obama’s “gutsy call,” giving his approval for the Special Forces mission to proceed. If you go to www.gutsycall.com, guess where you’re re-directed? Go ahead, go to www.gutsycall.com and see what happens.

I often wonder what the real motives of politicians are. The healthcare law that was supposed to be the end-all and be-all of all laws, touted as the best way to help all Americans does not provide health insurance for everyone and as of today has 729 approved waivers to the law. These waivers create a competitive advantage for those companies and unions, which the list is littered with, that the Obama Administration deemed as above the law. This is how free markets are destroyed. It is another kind of economy altogether when the government picks the winners and losers.

Today a new report has surfaced of Obama’s plan to tax every car by the mile driven, pathetically titled: “The Transportation Opportunities Act”. Combined with today’s historically high gas prices, this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. It is clearly an economically destructive policy. However, in reality, through regulations and exemptions, winners and losers will again be picked. The friends and donors of the politicians will be just fine and the rest of us will have to survive on even less.

Or the President simply wants to destroy our economy. It does not make sense.

I would like to think that my Sitemeter rated sixteen readers have had the question of “Whiter Cordeiro?” in the back of their minds over the past few weeks. Actually I’m not quite that naïve. Lately I’ve been suffering from an acute attack of business related travel and grad school assignments that have kept me off the grid. I have crossed this great nation a few times – to the sun swept beaches of San Diego to the heart of Texas in Houston and most recently to the green hills of Louisville, Kentucky.

In these travels I have done my level best to violate every single premise of the Obama Doctrine. I have eaten as much as I wanted. I have driven my SUV (rented and company owned) as much as I wanted. Whether in California, Texas, or Kentucky, I have kept my hotel room at a balmy 68 degrees and frankly I didn’t much care what people in “other countries” had to say about my actions.Read more

A few months ago, I wrote “Why President Obama can blame President Bush“. However, I was somewhat criticized–and rightfully so–that part of my argument was a matter of correlation that may not necessarily imply causation when I presented this chart (also below) as evidence of minimum wage’s effect on unemployment, thereby blaming President Bush rather for contributing significantly to the worst unemployment in the United States since the early 1980s.

Now, over at Political Calculations, they have done the math to show that “the federal minimum wage hikes of 2007, 2008 and 2009 account for 41.8% of the total reduction in jobs seen since 2006″ or 2,234,383 total jobs lost.

Today in our country only 53% percent of all workers pay 100% of the federal income tax bill. Therefore 47% of workers pay no taxes. Additionally 40% of workers actually receive additional funds when filing their taxes redistributed from the group that pays all the taxes. I’ll even point you to that evil conservative news source NPR for this data (though it is widely available).

Further, in research released yesterday, “government social benefits . . . were equal to 35% of all private and public wages and salaries in the 12 months ended January, up from 10% in 1960 and 21% in 2000.”

Two years can be to politics what two minutes is to a football game – an eternity. Two years ago Team Obama rode into DC on the Hope & Change Express full of promises to fundamentally reconstruct America into something more (meaning less) than what she had become. Virtually everyone and every organization would stop at nothing to have The One come and impart his wisdom upon them. Such was the afterglow of the 2008 election cycle.

Obamamania was not limited to the DC Beltway. According to the infallible Wikipedia, no fewer than seven states have schools or other institutions named in honor of The One. Bear in mind that most of these namings were enshrined before or shortly after The One sat in the Big Chair for the first time. Normally Americans wait to name buildings after someone until said someone has actually accomplished something.

But I digress.

Last year at this time, request for presidential speeches – specifically commencement addresses – were pouring into the White House. Nearly 1,000 schools were clamoring for The One to impart wisdom to the graduating masses before they went on either to get more education or do something novel like getting a job.Read more